Often when I write my bio, I say I started writing as soon as I could hold a pencil. It’s sounds good and it’s also true. One of my earliest memories, though vague, is of sitting at the dining room table trying to copy the letters out of a magazine. Trained as a journalist, I now write poetry and prose. Most recently my poem “Between the Sheets” appeared in the textbook Everything’s a Text (Pearson Education, 2010). My work has appeared in literary magazines such as After Hours, Falling Star, Off Channel, Moon Journal, Eclipse, Ropes (Galway, Ireland), The Stony Thursday Book (Limerick, Ireland); in anthologies such as Key West: A Collection, Family Gatherings, Take Two-They’re Small, and Kiss Me Goodnight (Syren Press), and on the web (www.inkandashes.com, www.thepoetrymill.blogspot.com).
In 1999 my short story “Picking,” was awarded Willow Spring‘s fiction prize, and I was named one of Chicago’s emerging poets by The Poetry Center for the poem “How the Egg Came to Be Eaten.” Poems of mine have placed in local contests sponsored by Evanston Library, The Guild Complex and www.chicagopoetry.com. In 2002 I had a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, County Monahan, Ireland to begin work on a novel I have yet to complete. I live in a suburb of Chicago, a city that will always have my heart.
A GLIMPSE OF ELLEN’S WORK:
Between the Sheets (PDF)
Remembering the Maine (PDF)
August 1999 Light is a Measure of Time (PDF)